


Hamon

by graycalls



Series: Of Self-Gilded Cages [1]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Role Reversal, Gen, Minor Character Death, Pidge | Katie Holt-centric, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, arena era, pidge is a stone cold badass
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-24
Updated: 2017-01-24
Packaged: 2018-09-19 14:08:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,880
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9444773
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/graycalls/pseuds/graycalls
Summary: There once was a Champion who hid his heart behind mock bloodlust and ferality. Who ran into the arena without looking back, who shut the door on himself, and hid the key before any could lock it on himThis is not his story





	

**Author's Note:**

> Specific pronoun notes, and premise discussion are in the bottom notes, as they are spoilers of a sort.

_ There once was a Champion who hid his heart behind mock bloodlust and ferality. Who ran into the arena without looking back, who shut the door on himself, and hid the key before any could lock it on him _

-

Shiro's feet pounded the ground as he finished the lap, keeping pace with the taller teen next to him. He felt _disgusting_ \- his shirt was soaking wet from the sweat, and he knew that he probably should stop sometime soon. 

Keith was, of course, easily tracking alongside him, their run seemingly easy to him.

The stairs leading up the the front doors of the Garrison loomed ahead of them, and Shiro gave them a longing look- and then turned back to the path ahead. One more lap, and then they'd go in.

-

_ This is not his story. _

-

The Champion faced an insectoid creature, it's deep blue chitin gleaming dully in the light, long-pinioned wings flaring for the first time in what had to be a while, from how it shuddered. 

It forced the creature into the air again and again, only attacking when it was made dizzy by the refound sensation in it's wings. The Champion struck it down, and slit it's throat, not bothering to move out of the way of the green icor spraying from the creature.

The crowd roared, and it stood, flicking icor off of it's claws.

-

"Hey, come on! It'll be easy, I swear, there's no way we're gonna be caught!" Lance gestured wildly as he spoke, hands tracing paths in the air, even while he leaned in the shadow of the shuttle he had flown in.

"Uh-uh. No way, I remember the last time I helped you get in at the simulators! They cut my rations for a week!" His vehemence was matched by Hunk, arms crossing firmly across his chest, and he scowled at his friend. "Besides, why do you even want in at those things anyway?"

"Obviously" Lance leaned forward, one finger pointing emphatically at Hunk's chest, "If they see my scores, they'll have to let me in!"

"Yeah, that's not happening. Besides-" Hunk cut himself off, spinning around at the sound of an explosion, the loud claxons of the announcement that the garrison was going under lockdown. "Did you hear that? What did that?"

Lance was already moving, throwing himself into the pilot's seat of his delivery shuttle, the actual delivery of food long since ignored. "Only one way to find out! Come on, let's see what landed!"

-

The Champion's arms were bound to it's throat by a tight chain connected to it's collar. 

This was normal. The Champion did not mind as it stared blankly across the room at a holographic video of a human with light brown hair being whipped. It's eyes avoided the boy, staring instead at the background of the holo, counting the lashes idly as the human screamed in pain. 

Across the room, a Galra who it was supposed to refer to as "Master" crossed his arms. "This was your fault, Champion. You know the price of failure." 

On the holo, the boy choked on a scream as a lash split his skin, crossing over an old scar. 

The Champion didn't blink, just stared at the markings on the wall behind the human's whipping post.

-

_ This is the tale of the Champion who saw her brother's panic, and walked forward calmly, stealing the sword with long earned ease. This is the story of a Champion who felled the beast though a war of attrition, hit and run slashes that bled it slowly, then cut its throat. This is the story of a Champion who saw the odds, then handed her key to the jailers for safe keeping, locking herself in a self-guilded cage, for the sake of saving her brother, for Fixing It, the way she always used to.  _

-

Keith watched the officials through his binoculars, tracking the figure being pulled into the building on a stretcher. 

Behind him, Shiro shifted nervously, ignoring the way the dirt was grinding into the knees of his Garrison uniform as he waited to hear the news. "What is it? What did they pull out?" 

"I dunno. Whatever it is, it's human, even if that ship isn't." Keith stood, jogging over to his bike. 

Shiro was already there, turning the key. 

-

The Champion clawed wildly at the table, long talons clawing deep gouges from the metal. "You have to get them! They're in danger! I have the coordinates, we have to save them!" 

The doctors ignored it,  _druids always would, the cries of the slaves tied to their tables didn't concern them_ pulling some medication from a bottle, loading a syringe.

"You have to listen to me, we're all in danger! We have to find them, I promised I'd find-"

The  _druid tired of it's noise and knocked it unoperational_ doctor slid the syringe into it's arm, starting to fill it's mind with fog and darkness.

-  
  
"What the hell?" 

Lance pulled the shuttle to a stop, staring in shock at what looked like two teenagers carrying an adult between them- and he knew that taller one's stupid hair-

"Hey, you!" The smaller of the teenagers yelled, this one in a Garrison uniform, seeming to direct his question at Hunk, who was already putting his hands up defensively.

"I- I didn't do it, we weren't here-" His stammered protests were ignored as the two split up, the younger boy taking on the full weight of the woman, as the complete asshole stepped away, back towards the bike.

"We'll meet back at the usual place. I'll distract them."

The younger boy- and he looked really familiar, who was he- nodded, and then dragged the woman into the side of the transport, slamming the door behind him. "Start driving- fast."

Lance was hitting the gas before he realized what was going on.

-

Shiro closed his teeth tightly over the scream that he desperately wanted to let out, nodding sharply at the officer in front of him. "Yes, Sir." 

_Matt wouldn't_ -

He walked the path from the office to his dorm, ignoring the way people's eyes caught on him the way they hadn't since he'd first shown up, a tiny runt, barely a teen and calling himself a cadet. If it hadn't been for-

 _Katie wouldn't_ -

He let himself into his dormroom, carefully shut and locked his door, and then moved to his bed, moving blindly because the room was spinning around him, and someone was breathing too fast, making a sharp keening noise.

 _Mr. Holt wouldn't_ -

It wasn't until late into the night, when he was choking back sobs that shook him to the bone, that Shiro let himself correct the thought.

 _Dad wouldn't_ -

-

_ The first champion broke, then rose, like a phoenix.  _

-

There was a tug at the Champion's collar as the droid attempted to correct it's direction. 

The bindings that connected the Champion's wrist to it's neck snapped, and it spun, kicking the droid into the wall and bolting into the shuttlebay, running straight towards the already fueled shuttle it had known would be there.

Shots lanced near it, one hitting it's leg, but the Champion didn't slow- it was used to pain by now.

Once the Champion was inside the shuttle, the door slid shut behind it, and a bright light flashed, rocking the shuttle in it's moorings as the hall outside the shuttlebay exploded into wall of flames.

The Champion scrambled at the console, inputting the coordinates it knew by heart.

As the shuttle took off, the Champion slid to the floor and- still ignoring the scorched and blistering hole in it's leg, clawed at it's intact arm, sharp talons ripping the fabric away from the flesh, and then digging in past that, into the arm itself, scratching a series of numbers into the spaces between scars.

-

"And you're just going to do nothing?" Keith shoved at Shiro's shoulder, almost yelling at him. 

"What can I do, Keith? Leave? Let them die a laughingstock? There's going to be a return mission in a few years, and by then one of us will be good enough to man the flight, we'd be able to figure out what happened!" Shiro held his ground, voice firm, not letting himself be pushed over by the older teen.

"We're both too close to it- the Garrison wouldn't let us in even if we begged. I'm going to find them one way or another, with or without you, Shiro." Keith was clutching at his jacket now, fingers digging so tightly into the fabric that his knuckles were turning white.

-

Katie sobbed, curled into herself on the floor of the cell, like it would make any kind of difference to the burning in her chest where a rib was broken. She was covered in blood, and most of it wasn't hers. 

There was the rustle of movement as her cellmate crossed the room to her corner, long talons clicking quietly against the hard floor. She didn't move, even as long fingers with too many bends and too hard skin started combing through her hair, one of a pair of thumbs tracing the bleach-white at her temples.

"You cannot let them take you away from yourself." The voice was layered with a buzz, like a nest of bees was talking. "What the Galra make your body do- that is not you, Katie-Pidge. You are not your body."

Dulled talons scratched lightly at her scalp, soothing the headache that Katie hadn't even realized she had, not through the burning of so many other wounds.

"You are here" a light tap of a false hand on her forehead, "and here" another on her chest, right over her heart. "Whatever they do to your body, it cannot hurt you in there. Tuck yourself away, Katie-Pidge, the Galra cannot corrupt what they cannot find."

-

The Champion was moving before it opened it's eyes, one arm swinging at the presence it could feel hovering near it, the other pushing it's body off of the bed, and into a defendable position, dragging it's hostage in front of it to shield it's body. 

It glared around the room- four targets, no visible weapons, all human-

It's eyes caught on a familiar pair of wide, dark eyes, and Pidge fell back into herself, dropping her arm away from her hostage's neck, dropping to the ground. "Shiro."

Her voice was a croak, broken and cracked, but it was enough for Shiro to bolt across the room, shoving- oh god was that Keith? out of the way, and plowing into her, clinging tightly as she broke into tears, sobbing into his hair as the weight of the years crashed down over her.

-

_ This one fell, and spun herself a web, like a spider. _

-

The guards pointed their guns at Matt, ordering him into the arena, and Katie just snapped, pushing her way forward, grabbing the sword out of his hand and shoving him behind her. 

"I'll do it."

Her voice was firm, brooking no arguments, and she ignored the way Matt wheezed her name, she'd knocked the air out of him when he'd hit the ground, and the guards let her stalk past them and into the arena, bright lights blinding her after so long in the dark.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Pidge is, for the most part, using the female pronouns, except for when she isn't. When she 'locks herself away' as the champion, the champion refers to itself as 'it'. 
> 
> The insectoid the champion kills is implied to be Pidge's cellmate, although if you want to imagine it's someone else, that's cool too. For the record, the advice she gives Pidge is perfectly healthy- if you're part of a hivemind with genetic memory. 
> 
> Fun facts that didn't fit in: 
> 
> 1) Matt is now a pilot, and slightly younger, because I wanted the Kerberos mission to become the Holt Family Vacation. When Shiro transferred in, Matt basically adopted this tiny prodigy pilot and took him home on all holidays and breaks. The Holts also adopted Shiro, and he regards Matt and Katie as siblings, and their dad as his.
> 
> 2) This is implied in the fic, but with Shiro and Keith in the same class, that means that when Keith drops out, Lance is still too low to get in, which is why he's flying deliveries. 
> 
> 3) With the age swap, Pidge ended up taking whatever role Shiro had in Keith's life. Dunno what it is, not going to ship war in this fic. They're close, and Keith takes her loss as badly as he did Shiro's
> 
> 4) Pidge doesn't lose her memories because the Galra have Matt to use against her. The reason she's so delusional on arrival to earth is because her leg wound got infected. The rescue showed up late enough that the doctors were able to treat her infection while she was still under.
> 
> 5) Yes, the BoM still helped Pidge escape- that's why the Champion knew there would be a shuttle. The Champion made them wait until it was sure it knew of Matt's location, and was able to get it to the BoM. I don't know if the BoM were able to grab Matt in time, though.


End file.
